Christmas Traditions to Start With Your Kids This Year

Have a Christmas Movie Night

Pick an evening in December, put on pajamas, make some popcorn or hot chocolate, and watch a favorite Christmas movie together.

You can watch the same movie every year or let a different family member choose each time.

Try putting phones and other distractions away during the movie. The tradition does not have to be complicated. Sometimes simply slowing down and spending an evening together is what makes it memorable.

Bake a Favorite Christmas Treat

Kids love getting involved in the kitchen, especially when cookies are involved.

Choose one recipe that your family can make every December. Younger children can help pour ingredients, use cookie cutters, or decorate finished cookies. Older children can take on more responsibility as their skills grow.

Do not worry if the cookies are uneven or the frosting gets everywhere. The goal is not perfect cookies. It is creating something together.

Over time, your child may begin to associate that recipe with Christmas at home and eventually share the same tradition with their own family.

Measure How Much They've Grown

Children change so much from one Christmas to the next. Turn that growth into an annual tradition.

Pick a particular day each December to measure your child's height and record it on a growth chart. Add the date so you can look back and see how much your child has grown each year.

A personalized wooden growth chart can make this tradition even more meaningful by keeping all those childhood milestones together in one place.

Take a photo each year, too. Years from now, you will have both the measurements and pictures that show just how quickly those Christmases passed.

Let Your Kids Make a Christmas Decoration 

Give your children a chance to contribute something of their own to your holiday decorations.

They could make:

• A paper ornament
• A handprint decoration
• A Christmas drawing
• A homemade wreath
• A decorated picture frame
• An ornament featuring the year

Store their creations with the rest of your Christmas decorations and bring them out again each December.

A decoration that seems simple today can become one of your favorite keepsakes years from now.

Read a Christmas Story Before Bed

Choose a favorite Christmas book and make it part of your December routine.

You could read the same story every Christmas Eve or create a collection of holiday books and choose a different one each night.

Reading together gives everyone a chance to slow down during a busy season. It also creates quiet one-on-one family time away from screens and holiday errands.

As your children learn to read, let them take turns reading parts of the story to the family.

Give Your Child Something Made Just for Them

Many Christmas presents eventually get used up, broken, or forgotten. A personalized gift can feel different because your child knows it was created specifically for them.

Something featuring their own name can become part of everyday childhood rather than something they play with for a few weeks and leave behind.

A personalized name puzzle, puzzle stool, coat rack, growth chart, or other wooden keepsake can also become something your family holds onto after your child outgrows its original purpose.

Take the Same Family Photo Every Christmas

Choose one spot in your home and take a family photo there each Christmas.

You might use the staircase, Christmas tree, fireplace, or front porch. Try to recreate the picture from approximately the same location each year.

At first, the changes might seem small. After several years, you will be able to look back and watch your family grow one Christmas at a time.

You can even display pictures from previous years during the holidays.

Let Your Child Choose a Gift for Someone Else

Christmas is also a good opportunity to teach children about giving.

Let your child choose a present for a sibling, grandparent, teacher, friend, or another special person. Depending on their age, they can help shop, make something themselves, wrap the present, and hand it to the recipient.

You can also start a family tradition of donating toys, choosing an item for a holiday giving program, or helping someone in your community.

Giving children a role in giving can help them understand that making someone else happy can be just as exciting as opening a present themselves.

Create a Special Christmas Morning Tradition

You do not have to rush straight to the presents on Christmas morning.

Maybe everyone eats breakfast together first. Perhaps your kids have to wait at the top of the stairs until everyone is ready. You might play the same Christmas music, make cinnamon rolls, take a family picture, or let the youngest child hand out the presents.

These little routines often become the things children remember.

Years later, they may not remember every toy underneath the tree, but they may remember exactly what Christmas morning felt like.

Make Your Family's Traditions Your Own

There is no right way to celebrate Christmas with your children.

Your traditions do not need to look like anyone else's. You can borrow ideas from your own childhood, start something completely new, or let your kids help decide what your family does each year.

The most important part is consistency. When a simple activity returns every December, children begin to anticipate it and connect it with time spent together.

At Hollow Woodworks, personalized gifts and keepsakes are designed around many of those same childhood moments, from learning a name to recording how much a child has grown.

This Christmas, focus on more than what goes under the tree. Create a few traditions your children can look forward to every year and memories your family can carry long after the decorations come down.